Emergency ITB: Examining Short, Long Term Impact Of Eagles QB Jalen Hurts Being Out Rest Of Season

Hello everyone, welcome to another Emergency ITB. I am Geoff Mosher. That is Adam Caplan. And listen, you know, it's that kind of year when you've recorded your third Emergency Inside the Birds podcast, and we aren't even halfway through the season yet, but it is really dire. Obviously, Jalen Hurts, most people have heard the news by now, he's going to be out for the rest of the year. There was a joint statement released by his agent, Nicole Lin, and the organization that basically said follow-up exams have revealed that not only did he have the blood clot that moved from the calf, but he has multiple clots in his lungs. It's the medical term is pulmonary emboli, which means multiple blood clots, and he is going to have to undergo, be going on blood thinners, and as we said in our last emergency podcast, you go on blood thinners, you're out for a long time, and he will be out for the rest of the year. Adam, obviously, the first thing is, it's a treatable condition, but you're always concerned about Jalen Hurts, his mindset, his health and welfare and all that. This is obviously the right move for him to be out for the rest of the year. Well, it doesn't say that he's out for the rest of the year, but I think we could say that he is. Yeah, yeah. You and I have gone through some issues in our life from health. I've been on blood thinners once, six years ago, and I know what that was like about not having any contact, couldn't bleed and don't want to go to the emergency room. And then when you talk about, I didn't have what Jalen has, okay, just to be clear. When you have both lungs filled with blood and fluid, you're worried, I know you had a condition, which I remember when you called me with it, I was very scared for you, I was very worried. Thank God that you were going to be fine and you were fine. But let's get back to Jalen here. When you get the diagnosis, further testing last week, which goes from left calf super vein thrombosis, which still is concerning, but after the testing and the statement, deep vein thrombosis, which is a more serious condition, as well as, and this is what you mentioned, bilateral pulmonary emboli. That is very scary stuff. I know there are medical people watching you know about this stuff. This is troubling. But I guess the one positive is that based on the dual statement that the blood thinner should take care of this. Yeah. Let's treat it. Non-surgical. But yeah. Thank God for his follow up. Obviously, you have to monitor it and figure out what's going on. But that's for our nine years doing this. I don't know what other serious situations we've dealt with being the third ninth year of doing this show. I just don't remember anything like this. Maybe even no better. I just don't remember. No, I think the only thing I can think of that's close is back in 2008, I think when Mike Patterson had the seizure at training camp, and he was diagnosed later with something I never heard of called brain AVF, which I don't remember what the AVF, or it's arterial something, arterial something that was not good with his brain, but he had to miss a significant amount of time, but eventually did come back. It was scarier because he had a seizure in the middle of training camp. You alluded to my experience. I talked about it in the last podcast where I was misdiagnosed with what Jalen Hurts was diagnosed with, which is a pulmonary embolism in my lung, and it was a misdiagnosis. But the point was, before they discovered that it was a misdiagnosis, when they thought I have one, I had every specialist under the sun at the hospital coming to visit me, which is scary. And what I was told was, and I think this is exactly what applies to Jalen, is the biggest medical fear when you have a pulmonary embolism in your lung is that it can very easily move up into your brain and cause either a stroke or a cerebral hemorrhage, which is obviously life-threatening. And so that is why it is so serious. And that is why he's on the blood thinner, but he is expected to make, according to the statement, a good and full recovery while he is out. I'm going to say, I'll say this, Adam, because we're not doctors. We'll move on and talk about what this means. But I want to be very careful in how I phrase this. I don't believe the Eagles have ever been nefarious with their players and their health. I think they always look to make the best decisions for the players and their health. I think injuries are complicated because there's that gray area of when a guy is hurt but still says he can play. For example, Landon Dickerson, Cam Juergens, right? You get medical clearance, doesn't mean you're 100%. And then it's up to the player to decide with that feedback, and then the team to decide if they want to play a guy. But the reporting that Jalen Hurts was told by doctors to stay awake, because if you lay down and if you're stationary, that thing has a better chance to move. The reporting that he was awake for 36 hours before he played in London, is chilling to me and a little scary. And I think that I put that both on the organization and Jalen, and he's saying, hey, I can do it, to have cooler heads prevail next time. Like that might have been more risky than they realized at the time. And I think it's fair to say, you got to step back sometimes and look at the bigger picture. Yeah, and I know that the thing with the condition is, SOB means shortness of breath. Like that you should always report to your doctor, because you're talking about a heart attack, potential heart attack, stroke, whatever case may be. And I don't know what kept Jalen up. We don't know. I mean, we don't know what he was, how he was feeling. But the reason why I'm bringing up shortness of breath, doing a little research on what he's dealing with, that is a common side effect of dealing with this, a common symptom, excuse me, of dealing with these conditions. You got to be careful, man. Your health is always more important than sports, man. Yeah. You know, he's, it's, you know, Colton Lynn, she also went to turn out, and she's still practicing. She knows what she an agent or she is an agent. She was an attorney at one point. So she, you know, about getting second opinions and so forth. But yeah, this one's a little, it's a little strange, say the least, that he was allowed to play, but they had better medical information than we do. So this is what it is. And he's got to tell him how he feels. You know, he's got, and with the initial diagnosis of superficial vein thrombosis, that is a clot, okay, of some sort. Yeah. But it's superficial. And you don't want to let it go any further. It's kind of sort of wait and see. You don't want it to turn into anything. And who knows what would happen over a series of days, but he's gonna be okay. He's gonna be okay. Thank goodness, you know, football is way more to the side to real life. And, you know, I think everybody kind of learned through this. It's a pretty serious situation. Absolutely. Now, the question that we have, the multiple questions we have is, how does this impact the team for both the short term and the long term? Obviously, the short term is Tanner McKee is your backup quarterback. He's the starter now. He's QB1 the rest of the way. I think you and I both imagined by maybe as early as Monday nights gaming against the Cowboys, Joe Milton will be QB2 with Cole Payton, still a developmental project. We'll see on that, but it is the Tanner McKee show. To me, Adam, that opens up a Pandora's box of questions about what you do with your offense going forward. The whole idea of this year was to integrate a new offense with Jalen Hurts being the lead part of it. Tanner McKee is a free agent at the end of the year. So he may not have even factored into long-term plans. So do you change your offense to better fit Tanner and the other injuries that you're currently have? Do you hope that when you get healthier upfront and Saquon Barkley gets back, that you just run the offense you've been trying to run with a different trigger man? To me, there's just so many questions and so many of them are health related and you just don't know if the Eagles will ever be at full strength in the other positions as the season goes on. Now that you have this information, you knew he was going to miss him in the four games anyway, Hurts. Now that he's out theoretically for the season, and being this next game is a week from today, next Monday night at home against the Cowboys. Know where you're at, you know what his strengths are, his limitations are, his weaknesses are, and you coach around that. The scheme is not going to change. Terminology is not going to change, you're one in West Coast, but you tailor that playbook, whatever it is, whatever it looks like, to what he does best. Now this is where Sirianni's been with Tanner McKay, obviously, since he started. You have an offense coordinator that's new here. This is his first season. We saw him obviously in OTAs, in training camp, in the preseason, and the quarterback's coach has been here for a couple of seasons. So most of these guys know him pretty well and they know what his strengths are. So you got to start coaching to it. We talked about it in the postgame, shows some of the mistakes in terms of, okay, what are you doing to get this guy comfortable and accurate? Well, they couldn't block early, they couldn't protect. He's a drop back passer. How are you going to do that? You're going to have him under center more. He was under center very much. When he was, it was terrible. We've talked about the predictability of, they do the number show when he's under center, when the quarterback is under center, whether it was Hurts or McKee, here's what it looks like, not good. Okay. The run game is atrocious. Yeah. I don't know what you're going to do now until Barclay returns. And quite frankly, they're still playing three backup offensive linemen. Right. That's not getting any better. So that's not on the coaches. It's on the coaches to coach around and do a better job, I guess, but they don't control personnel. And this is, they're in a tough way right now. This is not what anyone anticipated. No one anticipated Lane Johnson to retire suddenly. No one anticipated them and it's their control though. They had control over trading Cam Juergens. Although I think we all know they've got a great value on it because he's clearly a declining player. Then with Lane and Dickerson, okay, he friendly fire gets hurt in practice, he gets hurt. He bruises his knee, bone bruise, he bruises his knee, he's still out. We'll see if he's able to start taking work with starters. They've got a problem. They're in a crisis. The only upside of this thing is the division is terrible. They can get in by winning the division. Now, they're eventually going to get Barkley back. Big B back in the second half of the season. They're past our groups in tact. They're there. You can't complain about that. They're back. Smitty's back. So can McKee, to move this forward here, could McKee play way better? The coach has got to get this done here with McKee. He's got to play better. 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I think that we sit here and say the NFCE stinks, but I have not, I mean, the way the Eagles have regressed week after week, I'm not sure that they're any better or even on the same level as some of the teams right now. I mean, yeah, maybe they can be to Washington or New York. These are not good teams. Maybe Dallas can score points as bad as they are in defense. They're actually not, I mean, they were horrendous. That's true. They were horrendous against the Packers. So I don't know, they're a Jekyll and Hyde team as well. I mean, look at what the Eagles have become. They cannot move the football against anybody. So you can only ask their defense to do so much. I think we will have a really good clue about what their potential really is over the next few weeks going into the buy week, and then the trade deadline is shortly after. You would have to think if things continue to go south, they will be big sellers at the deadline. Yes, it's funny you said that because it's been on my mind because that's not the way Howie Roseman does business. Right. But he's also not been in this position very much in his career. You got to do what you got to do. We'll talk about some of the names that will draw interest. Two or three of them in particular will absolutely draw interest because they're on expiring deals. They're still good football players, but they're not there yet. Because you still have on defense, O'Jomo, we'll see about Jordan Davis' ankle injury didn't look good. Carter, you know, Carter. Grenard's got to get his ankle right, but when he's been healthy this season, he's played well. Bonnen's a stud, okay? Wolan has been more good than bad. Mitchell's a stud. Dejean not having the season that we expect, but he's a good player. So they've got the pieces to continue to be competitive on defense. Offensively, how they get out of their own way is a question that right now is unanswered. I don't know how they're going to do that. I agree. I agree. It's going to be an interesting next few weeks. For the future of the franchise, both long-term and short-term, and remember, this was even a year of, I mean, you'll have to wonder how Howie and Jeffrey Lurie will evaluate this year and what that means for evaluating Nick, what it means for evaluating Sean Mannion, what it means for the quarterback situation and the contract, because we know Jalen Hurts was, I think, out of his guaranteed money after there, or at least the majority of it. After next season, but it drops significantly next season? Correct. Not that there's zero chance they would ever cut him. Trading is a different story. It's a common season for another time. Right. But the situation now is you make a good point. Nick has never missed the playoffs, but the one thing that's going to be damning, knowing the way Geoffrey is, they have a... He's all about the passing game. Yep. The regression of the passing game started 23. Okay, 23, horrendous. Okay, let's put it this way. Wildly inconsistent, it cost Brian Johnson his job. Okay. Yes. 24 was not good. Right. The running game saved him. Okay, best running game in NFL history from beginning to end. Yep. 25, horrendous. 26, horrendous. How long is Geoffrey going to put up with this bleep? I agree with you. You know, Geoffrey is on record as saying that 2024, he was fine with because they were explosive, because he likes explosive offenses. It wasn't explosive pass. They got explosive run. He was fine with that. But now you're neither. Now you're neither. Now, now forget explosive. You would just love to get a nice first down run that gets you four to five freaking yards. Right. I mean, they are the opposite of functional right now. And you're right. Geoffrey Lawyer will not have patience for that. But at the same time, he and Howie and Nick, that was their decision. It was their decision to go this way in terms of going with the novice play caller. And you have to expect sometimes you're going to get bit by the injury bug. So that's got to be a part of it. And yeah, I think we'll get a good read on what's going on with the organizational mind as these weeks go on. Right now, you just have to play it out, see how you do, see if there's improvement, see if you can win some games and get back, get healthier, get back on track and see what that does. But it feels like you're a long way from being where you want to be. Yeah. On the health standpoint, it's not just one side of the football. It's both. That's the problem now. Your quarterback conceivably most likely is out for the rest of the season, even if by miracle they make the playoffs. It's so hard to imagine that even if they made the playoffs, it hurts to be clear to play because of what he's dealing with. Then you've got Barkley, I know it's a hamstring injury, but you get concerned about it. 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Remember, before all this stuff, he was the biggest liability on the offense, and then he went out, and then all these other injuries. So even if he comes back, it's still a big question mark for them. Well, remember with him, he confirmed on WIP. Because we knew the first, when did he get hurt? I forget. He got hurt week one. Yeah, week one. Well, he was already dealing with the bone bruise, but he played through it. Nobody knew that. Right. He gave it out on WIP and what he was dealing with. You just don't know what he could be when he comes back. They're in a tough way, man. You're looking for what could they build on? Well, the defense is hanging in there. The pastime group is intact. Here's the thing that's really troublesome. I know past protection was part of it. Carolina is down the two starting corners. Weather conditions were fine. I know you were at the game. It was a little windy at the first half. It had nothing to do with it. You can't even beat backup corners. That's embarrassing. You know what? The run game is not going to get better until they get Barclay back. Pierce has a four-string running back. That's what he is. He's doing what he can. But you can't even beat backup corners? Yep. Come on, man. You got to be better than that. Look at the Packers. They have had a terrible offensive line all year, and they've had no running game all year. But to their credit, Jordan Love has made the most of Christian Watson, and they made the most of Matthew Gould. They've been able to win games and move the ball. So I can't keep making excuses for the Eagles that they don't have a running game and they have a beat up offensive line. Not that I'm saying the Packers are anything great, but they've been able to overcome in their regard. But again, they at least have their starting quarterback. Let's be honest, Johnny Munn has not been probably what the Eagles thought. No, he has not blocked well. Yeah. That's another part of it. Some of the stuff that coaches don't, it's not on them, some of it is. They're not absolving anyone, front office or the coaching staff. They're kind of in it together here. I think what we've learned is the quality of the depth in the offensive line is not what anyone thought. Remember, they brought in the other Michael Jordan? Yes. There was hope that he, because he's sort of a journeyman guard who started some games. That didn't work. And where is the veteran guard that they brought in? They didn't after that. They did not. They did not. No, a lot of questions. A lot of questions for the Eagles going forward. Adam, unfortunately, probably much fewer answers. We just have to see how these play out. But what we do know is no Jalen Hurts, most likely for the rest of the year, out for the year and the Tanner McKee show is upon us. For better or for worse. And that is going to do it for this emergency edition of Inside the Birds. We of course thank everybody for flying with us. For Adam Caplan, I'm Geoff Mosher. Thank you again for flying with us Inside the Birds.